ANKARA, February 18. /TASS/. The countries willing to keep Syria from falling apart should deal with President Bashar Assad, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News published on Monday.

"Assad is the legitimate president of Syria; he is the leader of that country. You may or may not like him. He is a state leader, he has a people, armed forces and intelligence. If you want to be among countries that want to save the destiny of Syria, you should deal with Assad," Peskov said.

CARACAS, February 19. /TASS/. Russia will send 300 tonnes of medicines to Venezuela, the Latin American country's President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday.

"On Wednesday 300 tonnes of legitimate humanitarian aid will arrive from Russia," Maduro said.

Russia will deliver medicines to Venezuela, he added. "We paid for them," he noted.

Last week over 60 containers with 933 tonnes of medicines were delivered to Venezuela from abroad. Most cargo arrived from China and Cuba.

BEIJING, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- China will attract a large pour of foreign investment in 2019, as the country keeps widening foreign access to its capital market, China Securities News reported Monday.

In 2018, China's capital market welcomed a record-high overseas investment of 120 billion U.S. dollars, the newspaper said, citing a report released by the Citibank.

The bank also projects that foreign capital worth 200 billion U.S. dollars will flow to China's capital market this year.

MOSCOW, February 18. /TASS/. The company - operator of the Nord Stream 2 project, Nord Stream 2 AG, laid about 700 km in total for two lines of the gas pipeline (1,224 km each), Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Monday, according to the Ministry of Energy.

"In total, around 700 km of the gas pipeline have been laid along both lines," Novak said after a telephone conversation with Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy of Germany Peter Altmaier. Novak noted that the project is being implemented in accordance with the schedule.

ABU DHABI, February 18. /TASS/. Russia will complete the deliveries of advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile systems to Turkey by the end of this year, CEO of Russia’s hi-tech corporation Rostec Sergei Chemezov said at the 14th IDEX-2019 international defense show on Monday.

"We have signed the contract and we will complete the deliveries by the end of this year. We will deliver all the systems this year," the chief executive said.

19 Feb 2019; DW: The founder of Huawei on Monday claimed there were political motivations behind the arrest of his daughter, Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou.

"Firstly, I object to what the US has done. This kind of politically motivated act is not acceptable," Ren Zhengfei told the BBC in his first broadcast interview since the arrest. "The US likes to sanction others, whenever there's an issue, they'll use such combative methods."

ABU-DHABI, February 18. /TASS/. Russia will supply to China a replacement for the S-400 air defense system missiles instead of those damaged during a storm in the English Channel a year ago, Rostec corporation chief Sergei Chemezov told the media at the IDEX-2019 exhibition in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

"The contract had been signed a long time ago. The shipment would’ve been carried by now, but regrettably the ship that was carrying the missiles was hit by a storm. We were forced to eliminate all those missiles to make new ones instead," Chemezov said.

New Delhi, Feb 18 (PTI) The Reserve Bank on Monday said it will give Rs 28,000 crore to the government as interim dividend.

The decision was taken at the meeting of the RBI's Central Board here.

"Based on a limited audit review and after applying the extant economic capital framework, the Board decided to transfer an interim surplus of Rs 280 billion to the central government for the half-year ended December 31, 2018," the central bank said in a statement.

This is the second successive year that the Reserve Bank will be transfering an interim surplus.

New Delhi, Feb 18 (PTI) BJP's association with the Shiv Sena goes beyond politics and is bound by a desire to see a strong India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Monday after the two parties agreed to contest the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly elections together.

He said the decision to contest together strengthens the NDA significantly.

Kolkata, Feb 18 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to initiate a high-level probe into financial impropriety and possible misappropriation of savings of common people due to the debt crisis in Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) Ltd.

The crisis has put to peril "lakhs and lakhs of employees" of private and public sector enterprises who had put their hard-earned money into the company, she said.

MOSCOW, February 19. /TASS/. Russia’s Roscosmos and US company Space Adventures have signed a new contract on the flight of two space tourists to the International Space Station until late 2021 onboard one spacecraft, the state corporation told TASS on Tuesday.

"The Roscosmos state corporation and US company Space Adventures have signed a contract on carrying out short-term space flights to the ISS by two non-professional astronauts onboard one spacecraft. The flight to the station will take place until the end of 2021," Roscosmos said.

ABU DHABI, February 18. /TASS/. The construction of a plant in Venezuela to manufacture Kalashnikov assault rifles will be completed by the end of this year, CEO of Russia’s Rostec hi-tech corporation Sergei Chemezov said at the IDEX-2019 defense show in Abu Dhabi on Monday.

"We have fulfilled all our obligations and only the construction of the production facility for Kalashnikov assault rifles has not yet been completed. This work will be fulfilled by the end of the year," the chief executive said.